An adventurous being by nature, James has always strived to improve himself in any means necessary while to share his passion and knowledge on music and sound with people around him.
Written by : ManMeng
Photography by : Kenny / ManMeng
Published : 22nd August 2007
Venue : Endah Parade, Sri Petaling, KL
DE : Design Enterprise
J : James
DE : Mind to share with us on ActionValley? How did you endeavor in music?
J : Previously before starting up ActionValley, I’m was working as chef in a hotel. While being far away from my hometown Muar, it was almost 9 years back when my elder sisters decided to venture into the business due to my sister’s passion in music. I was then offered the chance to manage the shop by myself. Of course I’m inexperienced back then and was nervous, but that is slowly overcomed after a period of time, talk about gaining experience through practice.
Did I mention that I’m the youngest of the 24 siblings in my family? Remember that it was the financial crisis in the whole South East Asia during that time, it was such a struggle back then that most of the transaction of the stock has to be in cash, but we believed that there is opportunity to gain from such hardship. ActionValley has grown steadily since then with our beliefs.
DE : There is a lot of music stores around Klang Valley alone, what makes ActionValley until today?
J : I’ve always believed that no matter in what business you are in, providing good customer service would always be the highest priority of all. It’s proven though with some shops which would provide a lower price, they would still prefer to come back at ActionValley. I guess it all comes back to treat every customer more than just a purchaser, but rather someone that you can share your knowledge with. That is then most of the time, new customers that came are from recommendation of existing customers. I think most probably that people that lives in urban city are more customer service-conscious.
DE : There is so many different genre of music available, how do you normally know which one to choose from? Do you manage to listen at all of it?
J : I remembered there is one time where I had almost 200 titles of album related to Buddhism meditation music. I listened to all of it and at one point, I saw some bright light at night (laughs).
Perhaps I do agree there is a lot to hear from, but you wouldn’t think it is a problem when you are really curious or passionate. Of course there are times I do learn from my customers as well! I guess that is how I fell in love with Celtic genre of music when one of the customer recommended it to me long time ago. That is when I felt that the shop is more than just selling records, where it is a sharing space for me to learn new things almost everyday. But for starters, I would always recommend Robin Spielberg (http://www.robinspielberg.com) of her amazing album.
DE : Any interesting tips about music that you want to share with our readers? What does different genre of music has different effect on the listener?
J : I’m not an expert in lecturing but I guess things I’ve learnt over the past few years does really benefits me and friends around me. For example, if you’re having insomnia, try to listen at sounds or music of wave. This will help to greatly reduce your level of stress during sleep. On the other hand, during the pregnancy of a woman, by allowing the baby to listen at the sound of dolphin, this will greatly reduce the risk of the newborn baby to be related to mentally related syndrome or sickness. While this may be completely unbelievable to some, it has been published on an article in newspaper not long ago which a baby inside the mother would understand of what a dolphin would say. Amazing, isn’t it?
While most of the people claim that classical is boring, it is indeed has a tremendous effect in training a child’s left and right brain. There is also a genre known as New Age which helps a child to develop a self discipline and appropriate behavior which they wouldn’t even notice. Of course, the mainstream genre like pop, alternative rock, dance, disco or trance are a form of rebellious expression which in fact, I wouldn’t recommend this kind of music to minors when they are not matured yet. While we may wonder why does the elders enjoy Old Folk songs. It is something which they enjoy, the songs which previously in their younger time, didn’t have the chance to enjoy it. More like recalling the old days.
DE : For an audiophile, how do you determine that an audio equipment is good? How far do a hobbyist will go to?
J : It is rather a subjective question for me to answer. But this is definitely goes back to the budget of the owner. Some user might just want to enjoy a good music at a budget, while some might even go as far as purchasing an audio cable which might go up to ninety-thousand ringgit! (That’s R.M. 90, 000). Talk about being an extremist, I had a friend that spent most of his time at home tuning his sound system after coming back from work. He was so obsessed that his wife felt that she was neglected by him (laughs loud).
Even by yourself, you can evaluate a system by playing classical music on it while standing in the middle of the setup. A classical music are a composition of different instruments which are stationed in a performance. That is if you are able to tell and identify every different instrument by its own. The clearer it is, the better the system and it would be more expensive. But do not be fooled by advertisements that promote how a good system is without you trying it out yourself beforehand. There is one article I’ve read that said the clarity of the sound are so clear that you can even know in the music, if there’s sound of a bird landing, you would know which leg lands first. If that’s the case, I would even know the gender of that bird (laughs).
DE : What makes a good Audio CD?
J : Generally a good Audio CD are affected by the technology used for recording. For example, Audio CD from Japan, USA and Germany promise good quality due to their recording equipment and studio. Apart from the usual Audio CD which that we normally saw that has more than a million copy of the original “Master Copy”. There is XRCD and XA which is both developed by JVC and Sony. XRCD are superior for instrumental based music while XA CDs has a crispier voice for the vocal. Usually, this master copy is limited to 2,000 copies only to avoid any drop of quality. That also explains the higher price than any conventional Audio CD. While there are different bit quality of Audio CD available on the market, those that is produced in Malaysia are usually in 8-bit.
DE : What is your opinion on piracy and online music stores?
J : I guess it does have some impact on the business, especially it’s believed that anyone below 25 years old now are familiar with obtaining music from the internet. Most purchase of an original CD are influenced by the packaging itself. That is why we get to see a lot of innovative album design, which has limited edition, collector’s edition that doesn’t fit into the standard CD rack anymore. And usually the potential buyers are from the artist’s hardcore fans only.
DE : What is the value of an audio?
J : Like Elvis Presley’s record, it can sell for as high as R.M. 600 now for each disc. That goes double or even more for those audio that is known as “First Cover” which are the very first copy of the audio to be released for public. In my opinion, value of an audio are lasting and are worth to be kept for collection while technology is something that improves overtime. Value of an audio also can be determined by the environment or time that the place is playing that music. We wouldn’t enjoy listening to Beethoven’s music in mamak, wouldn’t we?
DE : What is your personal preference in an album?
J : I personally prefer a complete album rather than a compilation of the best music from the composer or artist. I believed that it’s best to listen to an album in it’s original arrangement of song which has been carefully arranged. For an example, a movie wouldn’t be interesting if the whole session is filled with climax. The same concept applies to listening at a compilation album which only has the best music.
DE : What is your hobby during your free time?
J : I love to travel, which I would always save up to travel to cool places around the world. I believe that it is important to live life to the fullest because we might never know what will come to us tomorrow.
DE : How do you define success?
J : I guess the most successful person in life has to die when they are world famous. I guess by this way, we would leave a lasting impression that forever stamped into people’s mind. (laughs)
